Taking on the role of a much-loved playwright proves a challenge for actor Malcolm Scates... but at least he gets to keep his clothes on.Steve Pratt reports

THEATRE audiences in York saw a lot of Malcolm Scates last year. The actor followed playing rude mechanical Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream by showing his real bottom, going naked in David Hare's play The Blue Room.

His latest stage appearance finds him in disguise, hiding behind playwright Alan Bennett's glasses and Yorkshire accent in The Lady In The Van.

Bennett's play is an account of his rather odd relationship with Miss Shepherd, an eccentric and cantankerous old lady who lived in his garden in her dilapidated Bedford van for over 15 years.

Scates plays Bennett himself, with another actor as Bennett's alter ego. "I like to think they are very accurate Alan Bennetts," he says. "We have a lot of research stuff on tape. There's quite a difference between the voice we all know and love from plays like Talking Heads, and the voice he uses in conversation. Then it loses a lot of the things you associate with him. We've had to find a happy medium. We're not doing a Stars In Their Eyes impersonation."

The real Bennett hasn't been to rehearsals. "He's on record as saying that if he's been involved in the original production, seeing a play done by another company is like seeing a child fostered by someone else," he says.

Scates been "skulking" around Bennett's London home to get the feel for the place and community where the play is set. "The last time I was there with an A to Z of London trying to look like a tourist," he says.

"The longer we are rehearsing, the easier it gets. I never, at any stage, feel I'm doing an impression of Alan Bennett. He's crafted a really good play. You feel you are in a unique story that has echoes in the way he's treated his own mother and what he feels about himself as a writer."

Scates may be playing a Yorkshireman but is London born. He now lives in Sheffield with his wife and two young sons, a move dictated by being able to afford a bigger property in the North than down South.

Bennett knows about this revival of The Lady In The Van, so a visit to see the production isn't out of the question. "We're under the impression that if he comes he will not announce his arrival and won't hang around afterwards," says Scates.

* The Lady In The Van: West Yorkshire Playhouse from May 11 until June 15. Tickets 0113 213 7700